


Bedroom

by apparitionism



Category: Warehouse 13
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-23
Updated: 2014-05-25
Packaged: 2018-01-26 06:01:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 12,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1677386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/apparitionism/pseuds/apparitionism
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Let's imagine that it's sometime in an ideal S4, that H.G. hangs out at the Warehouse now and again, that she helps Mrs. F or whatever, and perhaps also (this is the part that matters) that she and Myka are not yet An Item. Now let's have some fun.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The Warehouse really did make unreasonable demands on people. This was Myka’s thought at eleven p.m. on a Friday, as her eyelids drooped. She was alone in the behemoth of a building, just barely wrapping up her last tasks for the day. To be fair, she’d pushed herself _maybe_ a little harder than necessary, but that was because Helena was supposed to get back from her latest whirlwind-world-tour errand for Mrs. Frederic sometime that night. Which meant that she would be around tomorrow, which in turn meant that Myka would be able to spend some time with her. If Helena wanted that too, she hastened to add, mentally. And _if_ Myka was finished with all the inventory and cataloguing that Artie had left for her when he and Pete zoomed off to check out that ping in Washington.

But it was eleven p.m., and even Myka couldn’t stay alert forever… “Wake up!” she said out loud. “You have incentive!” In the form of a dashing nineteenth-century inventor… with extremely dark eyes and insanely silky hair… and a voice that Myka could listen to all day every day all night every night… “Okay, new mantra!” Myka said, still aloud. “Do not under any circumstances think about the incentive!”

****

Steve and Claudia sat in the audience of the Univille Community Theater. They, along with most of the audience, had not stopped laughing for approximately two hours.

The leading lady demanded, “Why would my best friend write a letter to a lover and leave it at my house?”

“Because her lover is _your husband_!” thundered that same best friend’s husband.

Characters pointed fingers, accused each other of more infidelities, and slammed bedroom doors. Claudia almost choked to death from laughter. She fanned herself with her program.

While piloting the El Camino home, Claudia told Steve, “That’s the funniest thing I’ve seen in a long time. You know, when you said ‘let’s go see the Univille Players put on a French farce!’ I was all, this is it, Steve has lost his mind. But that was awesome. Do you think all their stuff’s that good? Maybe we should get season tickets. Although I wonder how long the season is. We might be out on a mission or something and have to miss some shows. I’d hate to waste the money. Which just goes to show you, you can’t plan very far ahead in this business, can you?”

She looked over at Steve in the passenger seat. He had fallen asleep. “You’re as bad as that bored husband in the play,” she told him. “Except we aren’t even married.”

Steve redeemed himself, a tiny bit, when after they reached the B&B he asked Claudia, “Want a snack? I’m hungry.”

“After that play,” Claudia said, “I want something French. Have we got any fries? We totally should have stopped for fries on the way home.”

Steve laughed and headed for the kitchen. “I’ll see. Isn’t there a French press in the back of one of those cabinets? I’ll make coffee, and we can pretend we’re in a Parisian café.”

Claudia scrabbled through her bag for the play’s program. “I know I’ve seen that dark-haired guy in town somewhere,” she muttered as she began flipping through it. “What’s his name, what’s his name…”

A folded piece of paper fell out of the program; she bent down to pick it up. As she unfolded it, she saw something like… glitter? A sparkle? Claudia shook her head. “What the…” She read the note, and her eyes widened. “Meet me in my… bedroom?” She shot a glance in Steve’s direction; he’d held her bag for her when she went to the bathroom… “Oh, man, what? In your bedroom?” She settled, almost steeled, herself. “Okay, Steve-o, I’ll play along, but if this is some kind of freaky surprise party, you are in big trouble.” She headed upstairs.

Unnoticed, the note fell from her hand and onto an end table, where it shimmered. Just a bit.

****

Claudia stood in the hallway outside Steve’s room. She knocked softly. “Hey, um, man, I thought you were going to the kitchen? Do we need to have some big heart-to-heart or something? Because I’m still sort of jonesing for those fries.” She tried the door. “Steve? You there?” She stepped one foot tentatively over the threshold, then the next.

She felt a rush of air, as if the door had swung shut behind her. She turned around, but the door was exactly as it had been. She shrugged and stepped toward the doorway… but she couldn’t walk through.

“Steve!” she called.

****

Steve appeared in the downstairs foyer from the kitchen, drying his hands on a dish towel. “Can’t find the French press,” he said, “but how about French toast?” He looked around the now-empty hallway. “Claud?”

His eyes were drawn to a particular end table. “Left me a note. Okay. A little weird, but okay.” He picked up the  note and unfolded it… was there some weird coating on the paper? Because it looked like it was really shiny…

“Meet me in my bedroom,” he read. He scrunched up his face. “Claud, are we going to have to have another talk about what ‘gay’ really means?” He walked across the living room, shaking his head, and dropped the note onto the coffee table. He sat down on the sofa and rubbed his eyes.

Then he heard Claudia calling him from upstairs. “Claud, are you okay?” he called back.

“I don’t know!”

He dashed upstairs, running for her bedroom, throwing her door open, flinging himself inside. He looked around. The room was empty.

“Claudia?” he asked. “Where are you?”

Wait, was that the door closing behind him?

****

Myka entered the front hall of the B&B. She shed her coat, hanging it on a hook. She said softly (because it was late), “Anyone here? Helena?” Just in case, maybe, Helena had arrived and was waiting up for her… but there was no response. She walked into the living room, where she flopped onto the sofa.

A folded piece of notepaper on the coffee table caught her eye. It looked… somehow antique, yet glossy. It seemed like the kind of paper Helena would prefer.

Myka couldn’t help herself: that glossy, almost sparkly paper called to her. She unfolded it. She read it.

She blushed, then glanced to the right, then the left, as if that would somehow reveal the note’s author. “Meet me in my bedroom,” she murmured. She looked up at the ceiling. Was it at all possible that Helena could be upstairs waiting for her? She rubbed her neck. She put the note down. She picked it up again. She put it down, decisively, and looked away from it. She looked back. She rubbed her neck again. Bit her lip.

Then she gave in and smiled. She ran to the stairs and took them two at a time.

TBC


	2. Chapter 2

A weary Helena opened the door of the B&B and trudged in. _Time zones_ , she thought, _and the exhausting movement therethrough_. She set her small suitcase down as quietly as she could and looked into the living room, thinking that perhaps Myka would have waited up for her arrival? But no, the room was empty and murky, illuminated only by the weak light from the small lamp on the corner table. Helena sighed. She was tempted to not even face the stairs: simply to collapse right here, on furniture that she knew was more than adequate for her current needs… but a bed did await, and it seemed an uncountable number of hours since she had been in one. She sighed again.

As she turned to confront the staircase, something caught her eye. At first she could not discern what had sparked at her, and she looked carefully around the room until she spotted it: a folded-over piece of notepaper on the low table before the sofa. She could not resist leaning over, picking it up, and reading the words it contained. Immediately, her lips curved into a smile. “At long last,” she murmured.

Suddenly the stairs seemed no impediment at all.

****

Myka was in her own bedroom, pacing. Her initial enthusiasm for the idea of meeting Helena in her bedroom had faded, and now she was driving herself crazy trying to think through the implications before actually taking that step. She paced, she breathed, she rubbed her neck, she worried. She looked at the clock—as if she’d promised to show up at a particular time? What was she thinking, anyway? What, really, was the problem? Helena had made her intentions clear. Now all Myka had to do was confirm that she herself had those same intentions. Which she did. She absolutely did.

She squared her shoulders and breathed deeply. Then she marched to her bedroom door and pulled it open.

Helena was standing on the threshold, hand raised, about to knock. “Myka!” she said brightly. “And there you are.”

Myka said, with a bit of a stammer, “I-I was just coming to see you.”

“Well, no need for that,” Helena said. “Here I am.”

“Um,” Myka said. They stood there for a moment, both seemingly eager but awkward. “Would you like to… come in?” Myka finally ventured.

“Yes?” Helena said, a bit tentatively.

Myka began to wonder if she’d completely misunderstood the motivation behind the note… but she stepped aside to let Helena in.

As Helena walked in, Myka felt a sudden draft, a whooshing of some kind. By the way Helena glanced around, seemingly confused, she’d felt it too.

Then Myka forgot about strange indoor zephyrs, because Helena had taken on a decidedly determined air. “So,” she said.

“Mm?” was all Myka could manage in response.

“Indeed,” Helena said, nodding as if Myka had just uttered a universal philosophical truth. “Did you want to… talk? Or perhaps… something else?’

“Uh,” was what Myka came up with this time. She started rubbing her neck again, realized she was doing, and would have flung her hand down by her side if she hadn’t thought that would look even more weird. “I figured that might not be… or maybe it is… I mean, that wouldn’t be what you wanted. To… do. In… I mean, the bedroom.”

Helena said, “Really, I would think that mentioning the bedroom makes one’s intentions clear. But perhaps I’m old-fashioned. Modern interpretations are still obscure to me.” She was moving very slowly, but very steadily, closer to Myka.

And Myka, mesmerized, said, “I would like to think that one’s intentions were clear. That the interpretation wouldn’t have changed all that much.”

“That’s very good news,” Helena said, stepping still closer, smiling just a little.

They were so, so close now… Myka could almost feel how the rise and fall of Helena’s breath made the air move against her own lips, could almost trace each tiny muscle in Helena’s face as her expression changed and became more serious…

How a sound had managed to make itself heard over the blood pounding in her ears, she had no idea—but it did. She stepped back. “Did you hear that?” she asked.

“Other people,” Helena said, stepping forward to stay in her space, “do live here.”

“I know, but it sort of seemed like… wait, what about _that_?”

Helena cocked her head.

Now it was clear: it was Claudia, yelling, “Steve, my phone just ran out of juice!” and Steve, shouting in response, “Mine’s about to go too! Just come to the door!”

“What do you think’s going on?” Myka asked Helena quietly. “Do you think we should do something?”

“Do something?” Helena asked, amused. “Because Claudia’s telephone requires recharging?”

Now Myka felt like a fool. “Well, I just…”

“You just what?” Helena asked. Clearly teasing. “You just want to get out of this… conversation, don’t you?”

“No! I don’t—” But Myka was, in fact, starting to lose her nerve. Maybe they’d been interrupted at exactly the right time, maybe it was fate saying that it was a bad idea, maybe this just overall wasn’t—

“I think,” Helena said, “that we have come to the point at which certain things need to be said. You clearly have realized it too. There is no need to dance around it any longer. Why else would you have invited me to your bedroom?”

“Well, I—wait. No. You invited _me_ to _your_ bedroom.”

“I would have been happy to do so, but you were the one who left a note. For me. Or have you conveniently forgotten that small detail?”

“What? No, _you_ left _me_ a note.”

Now Helena sounded a little testy: “I did no such thing.”

And that made Myka testy too: “Well, neither did I!” She stopped and took a mental step back. “So if you didn’t leave a note for me, and I didn’t leave a note for you, then…”

“Who left a note for whom?”

“And who is meeting whom in whose bedroom?”

They both looked to the door again when Claudia yelled, “Steve, if you don’t speak up, I can’t hear you!”

Steve shouted, “If you’d just talked to me instead of leaving a stupid note, this wouldn’t have happened!”

“Question answered?” Helena asked.

“I think we should go see what’s happening,” Myka suggested.

Helena sighed. “All right. But I’d like…” She angled her face to the floor. She looked up at Myka. She blinked. “I’d like to continue this conversation. Later. If you are so inclined.”

Myka felt something that she could describe only as a combination of sparkly want and ohmygod reticence, but she managed to hold to the former and say a simple “Yes.”

Helena smiled. “Excellent. Then let us see if we can address whatever is troubling Claudia and Agent Jinks.”

She strode to the doorway, made as if to stride _through_ the doorway—and promptly fell backwards into the room, right against Myka, who caught her and said (with remarkable self-possession, she thought, given the circumstances), “I thought we were going to wait till later for this.”

All Helena could come up with was, “What happened?”

“You tripped? Over the… I don’t know what? Come on, let’s go.” And Myka took the lead, but too forcefully: she too clunked against some invisible barrier and ended up sprawled on the floor, taking Helena down with her. “What is going on?” she asked groggily.

“I think,” Helena said—she was clearly starting to enjoy their entanglement on the floor, and Myka wanted to smack her and maybe do other things too—“that Claudia and Mr. Jinks may have some insight.” She called, “Claudia darling! Can you hear me?”

“H.G.!” Claudia yelled back. “Thank god somebody else finally got home. Look, here’s the thing: I’m stuck in Steve’s room, and he’s stuck in my room. And when I say stuck, I don’t mean that the door’s stuck or anything like that, I mean—”

“We know what you mean!” Myka shouted. “Because we’re stuck too! In _my_ room!”

There was a long pause. “Really?” Claudia then said. “Both of you?”

“Oh, for—” Myka started, but then she thought better of getting into any issues. “Could you just tell me what happened?”

“We don’t know what happened!” Steve yelled. “We got home, I went to the kitchen, Claudia went upstairs, and she thought I left her a note saying come to my room, so she did, but I thought she left me a note saying come to her room, so I did, and the next thing either of us knows, I can’t leave, and neither can she!”

Myka asked Helena, “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

“Regarding which topic?” Helena asked.

Myka really couldn’t stop her scowl.

“Oh, all right,” Helena said. “Yes, doubtless, it’s the note.”

“Which means…” Myka said.

Helena said, with a resigned sigh, “That you didn’t leave it for me.”

“Which is what you thought. And you didn’t leave it for me.”

“Which is what _you_ thought.”

They stared at each other. Then Helena said, “What _exactly_ did you think I meant?”

“Uh,” Myka said, “is that really important right now? Shouldn’t we be calling somebody to help us get the note neutralized?”

“Yes, we should,” Helena said. “But I would much prefer to hear your response to my question.”

“Later,” Myka said firmly. She pulled her cell phone out of her back pocket, thanking heaven that it hadn’t broken when she fell.

“No, now,” Helena said, just as firmly, and made an exceptionally swift grab for the phone. She almost got it, too, but Myka managed to lift it up, above her head. She was thanking heaven for making her taller than Helena, but then Helena started jumping for it, and she managed somehow to tip the phone out of Myka’s hand (almost knocking Myka over again in the process). That had the unfortunate effect of sending the phone skidding out into, and down, the hallway.

In silence, they both watched it disappear.

“Are you pleased with yourself?” Myka finally asked.

“Yes,” Helena said, the sarcasm thick. “Thrilled, actually.”

Claudia yelled, “Are you two having a fight?”

“Yes,” Myka yelled back, “we are.”

“We most certainly are,” Helena agreed.

Claudia said, “That’s great. Whatever. Anyway, could you timeout long enough to call Leena, or even Pete or Artie, and get somebody to do something about this? Our phones are dead and we can’t use each other’s chargers because _somebody_ has some dinosaur of a flip phone, and the angle’s wrong to try to fling anything at each other.”

“I _would_ ,” Myka said, “but _someone_ decided it would be a good idea to throw my phone into the hall.”

“I did no such thing!” Helena protested.

“Fine. You _tipped_ my phone into the hall. Better?”

“More accurate, at least. But if you had answered my question, as I requested, we would not be in this predicament.”

“Dammit, Helena, you already _know_ the answer to the question!”

Claudia bellowed, “The answer to what question?”

“None of your business!” Myka shouted back.

Steve yelled, “I don’t care what the question is, or whose business it is! How are we gonna get out of this?”

Myka said to Helena, “Any ideas, supergenius?”

“Well, if we were in _my_ room, we could perhaps attempt to use the grappler to recapture your telephone. I don’t suppose you have anything similar?”

****

Claudia sat in the doorway of Steve’s room. “Steve, your place is so boring,” she said.

Steve said, “Well, your place is insane. I don’t even know what half this stuff is.”

“Hey, quit looking at my stuff!”

“What else am I supposed to do?”

“Yeah, okay, good question. Why’d I leave my laptop at the warehouse? That was so stupid.”

Steve said, and she could tell he genuinely wanted her to feel better, “You left your laptop at the warehouse because you didn’t want to leave it in the car at the theater. It was totally reasonable. Don’t beat yourself up. I mean, what’s the worst that can happen? Eventually somebody’ll come home, and they can neutralize the note and we’ll get out. Right?”

“That’s the way you’d think it would work, right? But it all depends on the artifact, my man. It all depends on the artifact. And since somebody—maybe, oh I don’t know, _you_ —decided he didn’t want to have a computer in his room, I don’t have any way to find out about this one. Myka doesn’t have one either, as far as I know. And Pete and Artie aren’t due home till tomorrow, so this could get pret-ty old, this sitting here in the doorway, waiting.” She groaned. “Man, why’d Leena have to pick _this_ week to go on vacation?” Then she perked up. “Myka! Don’t you have your Farnsworth?”

“No,” Myka called, but she was clearly not paying real attention.

“Why not?”

“Because I left it downstairs.”

“Why?”

“Because I did.”

“But why? You never leave your Farnsworth anywhere.”

“I was in a hurry, okay?”  
  
“To get upstairs?”

“Yes, to get upstairs!”

“Why?”

Silence.  Then, “Could we stop the interrogation, please?”

Claudia threw her hands in the air. “Okay, okay. Jeez. Everybody’s so testy.”

Steve said, “Claud, we’re stuck. Haven’t you ever been in a snowed-in airport? People get testy.”

“Well, they also get really friendly and share their snacks and play cards.”

“You and I are friendly enough. But we can’t share any snacks—we’re at the wrong angle, or have you forgotten the ‘throw me my cell phone charger’ fiasco already? And I don’t see how we can play cards.”

“Twenty questions?” Claudia tried. “Hey Myka! You want to play twenty questions?”

“Slightly busy at the moment, darling!” H.G. responded. “Telephones to retrieve! Problems to solve!”

Claudia heard a… weird metallic clunk? Then she heard another.

She tried to keep her imagination to a minimum, but that got more difficult when she heard H.G. say, presumably to Myka, “If you don’t see that I would actually be quite good at this, you are an imbecile!” And it got even more difficult when Myka answered her with, “If you don’t let go of me right now, I will personally kill you after we get out of here!”

TBC

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> part 2 original tumblr tags: clunk is a funny sound, it could be anything


	3. Chapter 3

Had anyone been able to see the hallway, they would have apprehended a series of belts, buckled together to form a long line, terminating in a hook made of a wire coat hanger. They would also have apprehended that that line of belts was being flung from a certain bedroom; that it had already been so flung several times in succession. Occasionally, it landed vaguely near a small telephone, was jiggled a bit, and then, sadly, defeatedly, was retracted into the bedroom from whence it came.

At the open doorway of said bedroom, two women sat nearly on top of each other. One held the belts away from the other, who was grasping a mirror.

Helena pushed herself over Myka to get at the belts. “I would cast these far better than you would,” she growled.

“No. We both know my aim is better, and you said you’d hold the mirror so I could see where to aim, so _hold the mirror_!”

“If we were in my room,” Helena pouted, “we would have a great deal more to work with.” A thought seemed to strike her. “Why didn’t you come to my room in the first place? If you thought I had invited you there.”

“I’m not answering that either,” Myka said. “Not until we get out of here.”

“Oh, you mean not until you have a physical way to escape the conversation?” Helena said this somewhat contemptuously, and Myka tried to give her a withering look. “Coward,” Helena said, clearly taunting.

“Coward? Really? Name-calling… that’s mature.”

“Oh, so you’re calling me childish?”

“If the shoe fits…”

Helena sniffed, “I think ‘childish’ is a more apt description of someone who refuses to answer direct questions.”

“I thought you said the word was ‘coward.’”

“Yes. Because _two_ words could not possibly apply to the same situation.”

“That’s right, I forgot, you know _all_ the words,” Myka muttered.

“I am attempting to refrain from using several of the more expressive words I do know,” Helena said. “Just cast for the damned telephone, will you?”

“I am _trying_ to cast for the damn telephone. Hold the mirror steady.”

“I am _trying_ to hold the mirror steady,” Helena mimicked.

Much further down the hallway, Claudia moaned loudly to Steve, “Dude, they are gonna kill each other.”

Steve, clearly uncomfortable, said, “I thought they were… you know…”

“Your guess is as good as mine,” Claudia told him. “But either way, it doesn’t mean they’re not gonna kill each other.”

“I thought they were supposed to get friendly and share their snacks and play cards.”

“Normal people. But this is Myka and H.G. we’re talking about.”

Myka said, “I can hear you, you know! And just because I can’t get to you now doesn’t mean there won’t be consequences later!”

Claudia yelled back, “I’m not gonna sweat it. By then you’ll be so glad this is over with that you won’t even remember.”

“I’m taking notes,” Helena piped up.

Claudia says, “You’d think you’d be on my side in all this, H.G. And you’re not taking notes.”

“Well, I might have been… in any event, you seem to have forgotten Myka’s fascinating little memory quirk.”

Myka protested, “It’s not a _quirk_.”

“You are terribly preoccupied with _vocabulary_ tonight,” said Helena. “Fine. Your memory _idiosyncrasy_.”

A glum Claudia said, “Yeah, that’s right, the photographic idiosyncrasy thingy. I did forget. Awesome. So it’ll be frying pan, fire. Lucky me.”

“It’s not an _idiosyncrasy_ either! Or a _thingy_!” Myka shouted. She threw the belt-hook again, blindly. “Why isn’t this _working_?”

Helena helpfully supplied, “Because the telephone is too far away.”

“And whose fault is _that_?”

“Yours,” Helena said promptly. “You own too few belts.”

“How many pairs of pants does anyone need to hold up at once?”

“You are clearly far too unimaginative with regard to the use of binding implements,” Helena said.

“My imagination is just fine,” Myka retorted.

“Then why are we doing _this_ with the belts?”

“I will never share snacks or play cards with you! Ever!” Myka yelled at her. “And hold the mirror steady!”

Claudia dropped her head to her knees.

****

“So have you heard the one where two Warehouse agents walk into a bar?” Pete asked Artie. They were walking into a bar.

“Here is something that bothers me about you,” Artie said.

“Said one of the agents to the other,” Pete volleyed. “Keep going. I think we might have a good punchline coming here. And the agent went on.”

“What bothers me about you is that you say the word ‘Warehouse’ all the time. Anywhere.You have to show some discretion!”

“I was wrong about the punchline. Two Warehouse agents walk into a bar and one gets angry at the other for saying the word ‘Warehouse’? That’s just lame.”

“I am not here to write comedy. I am here to bag an artifact, and so are you, and we are here to do that in the most expeditious manner possible! Hello,” Artie said, turning to the bartender. “We’ve heard that some strange things might be happening, and we’re here to check it out.”

Pete coughed, “Warehouse!”

The bartender eyed both of them. “It’s weird that anybody would investigate it, but…”

“But?” Pete prompted.

“There’s this guy. Always been a nice guy, comes in, has a beer every so often, plays a game of pool. But lately, he’s here every night, buying drinks for girls, slinging cheesy pickup lines.”

“Don’t many people use cheesy pickup lines?” Artie asked. He pointedly did not look at Pete.

“Not this guy. He’d watch a game, maybe talk to a woman every now and then, but nothing like this.”

Pete hazarded, “Maybe he just decided it was time find somebody?”

“People don’t just wake up one morning and radically change their behavior,” Artie muttered. “There’s always some kind of precipitating event.”

“That doesn’t mean it was our kind of precipitating event. Maybe it was something normal and we don’t need to eutralize-nay and artifact-hay—maybe I just need to give a bro some dating advice.”

The bartender said, “He did just go on vacation.”

“See?” Pete told Artie, then asked the bartender, “So do you know where we can find this guy?”

“You can probably find him right here in not too long. I swear, it’s been every single night. I might have to get a bouncer or something. I told him a couple days ago, Jimmy, I said, you gotta tone this down. I mean, he’s really starting to get on the ladies’ nerves, and you know, if the ladies don’t show up…”

“The dudes don’t either. Gotcha,” Pete said. “We’ll bounce for you tonight, how’s that?”

“Hey, don’t hurt the guy,” the bartender said.

“We won’t,” Artie assured him. “We just want to talk to him. He might have some information that could help us.”

“Help you what?”

“Solve a mystery,” Pete said solemnly. “You ever watch Scooby-Doo?”

****

As Pete and Artie watched for a sign of their quarry, Pete said, “I’m gonna call Myka and update her. She and Claud can start looking into what kind of artifact could make you use cheesy pickup lines.”

“Fine,” Artie said. “We need to find out where he went on vacation. Probably got it there.”

“That’s weird,” Pete said.

“That he would get an artifact on vacation? Granted, it’s a little unusual, but—”

“No, it’s weird that Myka’s not answering. She always answers. I’ll try Claud.” Pete fiddled with the Farnsworth. “Nothing there either. Huh.” He pulled out his phone. “Let’s try the old-fashioned way.”

****

Myka and Helena were slumped in the doorway. “My arm hurts,” Myka complained.

“Mine hurts more,” Helena said. “I’m the one who had to hold the mirror _steady_.”

“Right, and you did that so well. I could _almost_ see what I was aiming for.”

“Perhaps your vision was clouded by your immaturity.”

“I’d hit you, but my arm hurts.”

The phone in the hallway rang. Myka and Helena looked at each other. Helena hoisted the mirror and Myka raised the belt-grappler, and they tried again.

Myka hauled the line back in, muttering what might have been words about how British inventors should be able to understand the principles of light reflection.

Claudia yelled, “Who’s calling? Is it Pete?”

Myka said, “How am I supposed to know? I can’t see the phone!”

“If you had decent ringtones you’d know!”

“How would that even help? It doesn’t matter who’s calling! We can’t answer it!”

Claudia said, confidently, “If it’s Pete, he’ll get a vibe. He’ll think it’s weird that you aren’t answering, and he’ll wonder what’s going on.”

“Yeah,” Myka agreed, “and then he’ll get hungry, and he’ll wonder where he can find a falafel stand.”

Claudia said, “I would sell Steve’s phone for some falafel right now. Oh yeah, except for no one would _buy_ Steve’s phone because it is the Apple IIe of phones. I would have to _give someone falafel_ to get them to take Steve’s phone.”

Steve said, “I would give someone falafel to get you to be quiet right now.”

“Why don’t you just give _me_ the falafel? Two birds with one falafel.”

“What if I decide that a falafel in the hand is worth—”

Myka yelled, “If anyone says the word ‘falafel’ again, it will be their last!”

There was a brief pause.

“Uh oh,” Steve said.

Claudia mock-whispered, “Three… two… one…”

 “Falafel,” said Helena.

TBC

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> part 3 original tumblr tags: sorry about that last bit, but everybody always says Pete is such a kid, like he is the only one, although who among these loons really has maturity locked down?


	4. Chapter 4

Helena sat very quietly on Myka’s bed.

Myka paced back and forth in front of her.

“Myka, I didn’t mean—” Helena began.

“What did I just tell you?” Myka snapped.

“That you don’t want to hear my voice if it isn’t about the artifact.”

“So you do remember. Good.” Myka had stopped her pacing, but now she began again.

“About the artifact,” Helena said.

“What about the artifact?”

“I could think more clearly about the artifact if you would accept my apology.”

“Stop being clever,” Myka told her, severely.

“About the artifact,” Helena said.

“No, not about the artifact! Be clever about the artifact! Just quit with everything else!”

“I was actually intending to offer another statement of apology. I meant this one to be slightly less clever but could not figure out a different way to begin. Which, you must admit, is not very clever at all.” She smiled.

Myka was becoming very, very accustomed to feeling the contradictory pull of two impulses: hit her / kiss her. Both would shut Helena up, probably, so mission accomplished there. The smile was next to impossible to resist, thus “kiss” was pulling harder in this moment… but “hit” was probably going to yank just as hard in a second, the minute she reopened that impossible mouth.

So Myka went with the least dangerous option: she kept pacing, back and forth, trying to think about the artifact—“meet me in my—”, tripping over the word “bedroom,” glancing at the woman with whom she was trapped in her bedroom. She would have said, earlier this evening, that the idea of being trapped in a bedroom with Helena was… compelling.

Now it was… _oh, give it up_ , she told herself. _You know it’s still compelling_. Her pacing took her near the open yet impassable doorway. She looked back at Helena, weighed options, thought about possibilities.

“With regard to the artifact,” Helena said.

Myka slammed her fist against the invisible barrier.

****

“Nobody’s answering their phones,” Pete said to Artie. “Do you think that’s a weird thing?”

“Yes. I think it’s an extremely weird thing. But I don’t care, because we’re trying to find an artifact here! Could you please keep your mind on the task at hand?”

“My mind is on the task at hand! Because we might’ve been able to get some _help_ with the task at hand, if not for the weird thing.” He looked around the bar. “You know what another weird thing is?”

"No"

 ”Seeing you in a bar. I’m gonna get that joke worked out yet.”

Artie ignored Pete and swiveled around, scanning the room. “What was it the bartender said?”

“Suit. He’ll be wearing a suit. Which should pretty much distinguish him from this crowd, huh?” The guys around them were wearing, almost to a man, baseball caps and jeans. The women were also casual. And sure enough, in a matter of moments, in strutted a man in a suit that would clearly have been more at home at a funeral than in a bar.

“Bogey at three o’clock!” Artie exclaimed.

“Bogey,” Pete repeated. “He looks _nothing_ like Bogart. This rabbity guy would  never be able to get Lauren Bacall to look at him once, much less twice, much less marry him.”

 ”Bogey. As in _incoming_.”

“Gotcha.” Pete approached Mr. Suit. “Hey, excuse me, how ya doing this evening? Could I have a quick word with you?”

“I’m really in sort of a hurry,” says Suit. He adjusted his tie in in a way that proclaimed, “I don’t know how to adjust a tie.”

Pete glanced at Artie, who was starting to get funny looks from the bar patrons. He did seem pretty out of place: no drink, agitated, big bag full of god-knows-what… Pete figured he’d better hurry it up.

 ”What’s your name, sir?”

“Newhouse. Jimmy Newhouse. What’s going on?”

“We’re just checking out some unusual activity in the area, Mr. Newhouse, and we were wondering if you could help us out. Have you traveled anywhere recently?”

Newhouse twitched. “Yeah, I went to Italy. My mother wanted to go, you know, see the ancestral homeland, so we went.”

“And did anything unusual happen to you while you were there?”

“Other than being in Italy? That’s pretty unusual.”

“Okay, or when you came back? The bartender said that maybe you’ve been coming in a little more regularly? Spending a lot of time with the ladies?”

“You can imagine,” Newhouse said, and his entire being seemed to straighten and shine, “how much time the ladies want to spend with _me_.”

“I sort of can,” Pete said. _And the answer is, none at all_.

“Let him go,” Artie suddenly said.

Pete gave him the “what is up?” look, but Artie waved him off. “Okay,” Pete said. “Sorry to have bothered you, man. We may need to ask you some more questions, though, so maybe no trips to the old country in the next few days?”

“I don’t think the girls would let me leave,” Newhouse said, then called to the room at large, “Ladies! Somebody better call animal control, because I see a lot of foxes in here tonight!”

“That line working for you?” Pete asked.

“Just a matter of time,” Newhouse said.

“You know,” Pete said, “I’ve found that the ladies kind of like an approach that’s less… direct.”

“Well,” Newhouse said, “you just aren’t finding the right kind of ladies.”

“That might be true.”

Artie leaned toward Pete. “Stop picking up dating tips and let’s go!”

Newhouse peacocked away, and Pete said to Artie, “He just barely started talking!”

“He’s clearly been affected by artifact, but I don’t think he has one on him. I suggest we take this opportunity to investigate wherever it is this Jimmy Newhouse lives. Since he’s clearly going to be here for some time.”

“If he doesn’t get thrown out, you mean. And oh, man, breaking and entering. My favorite.”

************

“Why don’t you have any snacks in here?” Claudia asked Steve. “I’m starving.”

“Because Leena told me not to keep food in the room. It attracts bugs, she said.”

“And you always do what you’re told? I couldn’t live without my Cheetos, etc. In fact, I don’t think I can live much longer without them right now.”

Steve sighed. “Claudia, it’s been maybe four hours. Four hours without Cheetos etc. is not going to result in starvation.”

“I know that, Steve-o. It’s called hyperbole? Exaggeration for effect? Heard of it?”

“Yeah,” Steve sighed again. “I hate it. Makes my head hurt—it’s too much like a lie. Come on, I’ll distract you. Any thoughts about how we could, maybe, short-circuit our artifact’s effects?”

“A note that says ‘meet me in my bedroom’?” Claudia snorted. “Yeah, I have thoughts, none of which are probably gonna work for the two of us, and even if they would, they wouldn’t work for the two of us in separate rooms.”

“Well, Myka and H.G. aren’t in separate rooms.”

“In case you haven’t noticed, they aren’t exactly on friendly terms right now. In fact, have we heard a single noise since the falafel incident?”

“Not one,” Steve admitted. “But don’t you figure they could patch it up for the sake of the team? For the sake of you being able to get your paws on some Cheetos—or even falafel—before tomorrow night when Artie and Pete get home?”

“First,” Claudia said, “with our luck, the biggest snowstorm in history hits that Washington airport, and they don’t get home until spring. But second, I don’t even know what the situation is, over in that bedroom, even without artifactation. I don’t even know if _they_ know what the situation is, over in that bedroom. Which is probably why they keep having fights, come to think of it.”

“This doesn’t bode well, does it?” Steve asked.

“I can hear the Jaws theme music playing,” Claudia said. “You don’t have a bigger boat anywhere in here, do you?”

****

Pete and Artie, flashlights clutched in their purple-gloved hands, crept through Jimmy Newhouse’s apartment, picking up objects and putting them down.

“What would you get as a souvenir if you were on vacation in Italy?” Pete asked Artie. “Wait, what am I saying? What would you be doing on vacation—anywhere, let alone Italy?”

“For your information, I’ve been to Italy several times.”

“That’s not what I said. You were there for spy biz, weren’t you?”

“Well, of course,” Artie huffed.

“Like I said. Hey, maybe it isn’t something he got, but something his mom got for him. What do moms get for their kids?”

“My mother got me neuroses.”

“Okay, what do normal people’s moms get for their kids?”

“Candy. Bicycles.”

“Their kids who are older than eight.”

“Pot roast.”

Pete considered his mom. “Socks!” he exclaimed.

They checked out the dresser and closet in the bedroom. No artifacts seemed apparent. Pete flopped onto the bed, disappointed that his sock theory hadn’t panned out. “Man, I’m beat. When we finish this, can we go back to that dinky little motel and get some shuteye?”

“Will you get up? You don’t think he’s going to notice that somebody’s been sleeping in his bed, Goldilocks?”

“First,” said Pete, “my locks have never been gold. But I would make a devastatingly handsome blond.”

Artie just sighed.

“Okay, but seriously, like some dude who lives alone is gonna notice the state of his bed? He clearly doesn’t _make_ the bed, maybe ever.”

Artie sighed again. “Fine. We’ll get some sleep and start fresh in the morning. Talk to the mother.”

Pete pushed himself off the bed. He felt… wiggly. Weird. “Hey, now that I’ve had a chance to lie down, I’m feeling a little better. Maybe I’ll go back to the bar and try to chat some ladies up a little.” He clapped a hand on Artie’s shoulder. “I’d say you should come with me, but Artie, and I don’t want to hurt your feelings when I say this, you are not the ideal wingman.”

Artie said, “I’m sure I’d be insulted if I knew what that meant.”

They headed out of the apartment, Pete trying to explain to Artie what a wingman was and why he would be a bad one. “See, because the job of the wingman is not to shut ’em down, am I right?”

“Rarely.”

****

Helena was still sitting on Myka’s bed. Myka was still pacing.

A thaw, however, had clearly set in. “Okay, let’s go over this again: what do we know?” Myka asked.

“We know that we can’t leave this room,” Helena said. She had said it at least fifty times before, but it seemed wise not to bring that up.

“We know that we all read that note,” Myka went on. If she heard Helena’s slight frustration, she ignored it. Also a good sign. “And we’re concluding that the note is an artifact that… what? Locks you in a bedroom? What’s the point of that?”

At this, Helena could not help but roll her eyes. “What’s the point of that?” she repeated. “Myka, if you truly do not know the point of that…”

Myka turned away—to hide a blush, Helena was fairly certain. “Okay, I guess it doesn’t matter,” she said.

“Doesn’t matter?” Helena said, incredulous. “Doesn’t _matter_? That clearly _is_ the matter. Are you in all seriousness asking me why someone would want another someone to join them in the bedroom—and to enforce their stay?”

Myka took a certain amount of time to answer. Helena wondered, a bit, at her own reluctance to put such pauses to good use. To _make a move_ , as it were.

Myka finally said, “I am trying not to make assumptions. About anything. Claudia and Steve are _alone_ in their bedrooms, so maybe what you’re suggesting isn’t really what the artifact wants at all.” She paused and looked sadly at Helena. “I made an assumption about what the note meant, and it got us into this mess in the first place.”

Helena frowned. “My assumption did that. I came here. I am responsible for our being trapped. Please don’t blame yourself.”

“But doesn’t that mean that both our assumptions were just… intrinsically wrong?”

“Myka, please don’t do this,” Helena begged. “You know, you must know, that we _do_ need to speak of this. We have been through so much, so very much, together. Relying on omens to tell us what is and is not right?”

“I keep getting so _angry_ at you.”

“I will admit to provoking you. For my own amusement. But Myka, you do respond so adorably.”

“Adorably?”

“Myka,” Helena said. She wanted it to be a bit disapproving, but it came out indulgent.

Myka smiled.

Helena smiled back.

They moved closer to each other… slowly..

_The doorbell rang._

TBC

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> original part 4 tumblr tags: timezones and whatnots all tied up with string, these are a few of my favorite silly people


	5. Chapter 5

At the sound of the doorbell, four bodies catapulted toward tantalizingly unobstructed doorways. Four bodies slammed inelegantly against invisible barriers. Four bodies bounced back into their prison-boudoirs.

“Ow,” Claudia said.

“Ditto,” Steve said.

Myka and Helena said nothing. They were tangled on the floor again.

“Who’s there?” Claudia yelled.

“Jane Lattimer,” came the most wonderful voice any of them had ever heard. “I didn’t mean to wake everyone up, but I can’t find my key.”

“She’s got _keys_ to the place?” Claudia said, a bit more quietly. “And what’s she doing here at 3 a.m.?”

“Do you honestly care?” Steve asked.

Helena shouted, “The door is unlocked!”

“It is?” Myka asked her. “Why’d you leave the door unlocked?”

“Why did you leave your Farnsworth downstairs?” Helena challenged her.

“Touché,” Myka said.

They heard the front door open and close.

“Jane?” Myka shouted, “could you do us a quick favor?”

“Of course, Myka,” Jane said. “Why is everyone awake?”

“That is a very good question,” Helena piped up. “It is not unrelated to the favor. Do you perhaps see a note somewhere in the living room? That is, a folded sheet of notepaper?”

Footsteps. “Yes, I see it,” Jane called.

“Excellent,” Helena said. “If you would be so kind as to neutralize it?”

“Bags are in the drawer under the table!” Myka shouted.

“I’d be happy to help you,” Jane said, “but I’ve just remembered a… meeting. Yes, a meeting. An extremely important meeting. With someone. In a particular place. Sorry to have bothered you all!”

Footsteps again—running footsteps. Then the front door slammed shut.

Claudia said, “Please tell me that what I think just happened didn’t just happen.”

Helena answered, “That our one hope of rescue has gone to meet someone in a bedroom? I suspect that that is precisely what happened.”

“Pete’s mom,” Claudia said. “Pete’s mom is running off to meet somebody. In a bedroom. I vote for either never mentioning this to Pete, or _always_ mentioning this to Pete.”

Myka said, “I vote for getting out of here and bagging that thing before Jane ever gets to a bedroom. Because I really don’t think I want to know how mad she’ll be when she can’t get out.”

“Oh, she’ll get out,” Claudia said. “And then she’ll come and stand in the hallway here and use her death stare of anger on us until we _die from death_.”

Helena said, “I do think the, ah, _urgency_ of the situation has increased. Also, it seems to me, the artifact’s effects are growing stronger.”

Claudia fumed, “If we ever get out of this, I’m never going in a bedroom again! I’m sleeping on the couch in the living room!”

Steve asked, “Wouldn’t that just make it a big bedroom?

“Shut up!”

“Testy,” Steve admonished.

Myka and Helena simply looked at each other and sighed. Myka asked, “Do you want to try with the belts again?”

They tried with the belts again.

“I don’t understand why this isn’t working!” Myka finally said. She took the mirror from Helena and looked at the reflection of her phone, so impossibly far away. Frustration, tension, all of it got the better of her, and she flung the mirror against the wall.

After the shatter, Helena said mildly, “Isn’t that bad luck?”

Myka snorted. “Do you honestly think our luck can get any worse at this point? I’m surprised this isn’t all happening under a ladder with black cats walking around spilling salt on everything.”

“I’m not sure I understand all of those references,” Helena said.

“It’s all bad luck.”

“ _Some_ people,” Helena said, “might think there are worse fates than being marooned in a bedroom with me. They might in fact find it a quite lucky occasion.”

“ _Some_ people,” Myka began to retort, “might think…” No, wait, she was getting hung up on the idea of Helena and bedrooms and lucky occasions and _getting_ lucky and… “They might think…”

Helena took pity on her, a little. “But I don’t believe I have ever captured anyone and held them against their will.”

“It isn’t against my will,” Myka said instinctively, automatically. Helena raised her eyebrows, and Myka started backpedaling, “I mean, it’s obviously against my will in the sense that I can’t walk out if I want to, but it isn’t in the sense that… in the sense that… because under other circumstances… I mean, like you said, there are worse fates… I could probably make a list… a really long list… Helena, what are you doing?” For Helena was walking toward her again, one very slow step at a time.

“I making an advance.”

“An advance?” Myka said, her mouth dry.

“Yes. A quite literal advance. Upon you.”

“Don’t we… need to concentrate? On ideas?”

“I have _several_ ideas.”

“But what about… what about… ah…”

“Jane?” Helena prompted.

“Right. Jane. What about her?”

“What about her? Claudia said it: she will most likely be able to escape wherever she is trapped—she will have a telephone, or her Farnsworth, or some other way to communicate. In any case, her son and Artie will return tomorrow.  I have had my fill of watching you fling an inferior grappling device, and in any event the mirror is broken. I came to your bedroom for a _purpose_ , and I intend to fulfill that purpose. _Now_.”

It was a compelling case. Myka closed her eyes.

A resounding thud, followed by a crash, followed by a scream, made her open her eyes again. Helena had turned her head toward the hallway. Her expression was murderous.

“Steve!” Claudia shouted.

Helena growled, “I do not see how it is that we cannot find a moment’s peace even when we are locked in a room alone.”

Myka called out, “Steve, are you okay?”

“Not exactly,” Steve said.

****

“Another club soda for me,” Pete called to the bartender. “And bring these lovely ladies whatever they’d like!” He was playing pool against one very attractive young lady and showing off for all the rest. A few had turned him down, but that just made him more persistent. They’d come around. Eventually.

“Jimmy my man!” Pete crowed to Newhouse, who was skulking against the wall. “You better get ready to lose the next game!”

Newhouse put down his drink and stood up. “Just who _are_ you, anyway?”

“I told you, I’m Pete,” said Pete.

“No, I mean, what are you _doing_ here? This isn’t your town. This is _my_ town. Who are you to waltz in here like you own the place?”

“Calm down, man. I’m just here for a little while, and it’s no crime to enjoy some female companionship. Especially when they’re all obviously into me.”

“No!” Newhouse shouted. “They’re all obviously into _me_!”

“No offense, Jimmy, but there really isn’t a lady here who wouldn’t want this action.” He winked at a woman who’d turned him down twice already. She threw her drink in his face.

Newhouse exclaimed in triumph, “Ha! It’s _me_ they want!” He winked at the same woman. She grabbed her companion’s drink and threw it in _his_ face.

“That’s just this charming lady’s way of saying ‘keep trying, Pete,’” Pete explained patiently. “She just wants a fresh drink. And one for her friend. Back off, little man.”

At that, Newhouse leapt, fists flying, at Pete. Pete stepped out of the way and let him bellyflop onto the pool table. “There is no woman in this world who doesn’t want me. Except Myka, which I’m okay with, but right now, even Myka would be all over me.” He paused. “Hold on, what did I just say?”

One of the ladies helpfully parroted back at him, “You said, ‘right now, even Myka would be all over me.’ Maybe you could go find her and quit bothering us.”

“Huh,” Pete said. Newhouse scrambled up from the pool table and dove for Pete again, but Pete stuck his arm out, grabbed his collar, and held him just far enough away. Newhouse swung his fists ineffectually. “You know what that suggests to me?” he said conversationally to the woman. “And by the way, you have beautiful eyes.”

She was buying what he was selling, he was sure. She batted her eyes at him. “What does that suggest to you?” she asked, flirtatiously.

“Something’s happened to me,” he said.

She rolled her eyes at him. Pete was sure she meant that flirtatiously too, but… he was still a Warehouse agent, though a really hot one that all the ladies loved, and he had a job to do. He dropped Newhouse back on the pool table, got his phone out, and called Artie. “I need your help,” he said when he heard a drowsy, grumpy “what?”

Pete made kissing noises at another girl. Artie said, “I’m hanging up now.”

“No!” Pete said. “You know how I said I wanted to chat up the ladies? I’m pretty sure I know why.”

“Because you think you’re some kind of Casanova?”

“Actually, yeah,” Pete said. “But I think I think that because of an artifact-hay.”

“You always think that! No artifacts required!”

“Yeah, but I just said that I thought I’d be irresistible to _Myka_.”

“That’s impossible,” Artie said.

“Exactly,” Pete agreed. He smiled and nodded at another woman. She turned her back on him. “I had to have gotten whammied at the apartment.”

“I’ll come get you,” Artie said. “Tear you away from the ladies, retrace our steps in the apartment. And if we can’t find the artifact, we’ll still talk to the mother tomorrow.”

“If she’s good looking, we should talk to her now!” Pete crowed. “I’m undeniable!”

“Do I have to handcuff you to something to keep you from doing something stupid?”

“Kinky, boss,” Pete said, then hung up and shouted, “Another round for the ladies!”

The ladies groaned en masse.

****

“Oh god,” Steve yelped.

“What did you do?” Claudia asked.

“I wanted to try to get the charger out of the hall. I figured if Myka and H.G. can’t get her phone, I had to try something… and I thought I could see better if I stood on a chair, so I tried that, but your chair… has wheels.”

“ _Yeah_ my chair has wheels. You didn’t notice that when you were _wheeling_ it over to the door?”

“Of course I noticed it! I just didn’t think you would’ve greased the wheels, or whatever it is you did that made it squirt out from under me like a Formula One car!”

“It’s not greased. It’s just… enhanced. With cooler ball bearings than you’re gonna find in any other chair’s wheels, let me tell you. In fact, I could probably make some decent money, tricking out office chairs. I bet there’s a market—”

Steve interrupted, “That’s great, Claud. Except for I think my arm might be broken. And I don’t want to sound like a wimp or anything, but it’s… kind of bad.”

“What? You broke your arm? Myka! H.G.! Steve broke his arm!”

Myka and Helena were in the doorway, listening. “Steve broke his arm,” Myka said.

Helena nodded. “I have heard that.”

“Is there something intrinsically wrong with all of us, do you think? That we can’t just sit still and not make a bad situation worse?”

“I think that is a plausible theory,” Helena told her. “But sitting still does not seem to be an option anymore.” She smiled. “Not that my intention was to sit still, I assure you.”

Myka smiled back. “I like your intention. I really, really do.”

“I still have it. My intention, that is.”

“Do you remember,” Myka said, “earlier, when we were on… less friendly terms, you said that you could probably think more clearly if I accepted your apology?”

Helena nodded.

“Well,” Myka said. “I feel sort of… distracted. By your intention. And I also think, I mean this is just a theory, but I think it’s plausible, that maybe you are too. Distracted. By it.”

“Theories should be tested,” Helena said.

“I have heard that.”

“This is really not the circumstance under which I had pictured this occurring.” But she took Myka’s hand.

Myka raised her voice. “Claudia? Steve? Could you guys not do anything at all for just a minute, please?”

“Steve!” Claudia exclaimed. “My theory! I think they’re gonna! Maybe we’re saved!”

“What does she mean? What theory?” Helena asked Myka.

“I don’t care,” Myka said. She pulled Helena close and finally, finally, finally kissed her.

Was there some crisis occurring? Some disaster? Myka forgot everything but what her body was telling her: that this was the most glorious thing it had ever felt, and that everything in the world would be just fine if only this could go on forever. Judging by the way Helena’s mouth was moving against hers, and the way her hands were starting to move too, she agreed.

Myka was beginning to feel that they were developing a real mutual expertise, with mouths and tongues finding some extremely compelling inflections—Helena was making _very_ encouraging noises—when an annoyingly dutiful, practical part of her rebooted itself and reminded her that this couldn’t actually go on forever. At least not right now.

“Don’t,” Helena said softly as Myka pulled away.

And all of Myka soared in response to that whisper of protest. “We’ll do this again. And again and again. I promise. Why did we wait so long?” Myka murmured.

Helena exhaled. “I have made your life extremely difficult,” she said. “And I think you wanted to be sure. About… all of it.”

“I’m extremely sure now.”

“Also,” said Helena, warming to her subject, clearly feeling more sure of herself as well, “you are rather shy.”

“That’s not always true,” Myka said.

“Really?” Helena drawled.

“Really. And once we get out of this, I’ll show you.  I’d show you now, but  I actually like Steve a lot, and I’d rather he didn’t have to suffer.”

“Completely reasonable,” Helena said. “If somewhat disappointing for me personally.” She ran her hand through her hair as if to settle herself.

“Except you know what the problem is now?” Myka asked.

“What’s that?”

“I’m even more distracted than I was before.”

“If you guys just did what I think you just did? Update: it didn’t save us!” Claudia shouted. “Just FYI, I think you might have to actually get it on!”

Myka sighed. “Okay. Right. And now I know what Claudia’s theory was.”

Helena smiled. Impishly. “I like her new one,” she said.

 _Revised mantra_ , Myka told herself. _Do not think about Claudia’s new theory!_

TBC

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> part 5 original tumblr tags: poor captivated little captives, what will save them now?


	6. Chapter 6

“Okay, so the note fell out of Claudia’s program from the play. What does _that_ tell us?” Myka asked.

“That this is _divine_ ,” Helena said, and kissed her again.

She had Myka backed up against the open doorway. And she was bestowing each kiss, she had explained, as a reward for making progress on figuring out the artifact.

 _Myka’s_ new theory (she was still aggressively not thinking about Claudia’s, though she had to admit, if only to herself, that all this kissing was weakening her resolve a _little_ ) was that Helena would kiss her after anything she said, regardless of its relation to the artifact. So she tested it. “Oranges are orange,” she said.

Helena kissed her.

“That _is_ pretty divine,” Myka conceded.

“Wait,” Steve said. “It wasn’t Claud’s program. It was mine.”

“No, it was in my bag,” Claudia said.

“Remember, though, you’d been fanning yourself with your program, and you tossed it because it was wrinkled. I put mine in your bag later… later! While I was holding your bag, when you went to the bathroom! And I ran into that guy who was packing up the exhibit!”

“What guy?” Myka asked. “What exhibit?” The latter question was somewhat muffled by Helena’s mouth on hers.

“He had a bunch of historical things—actors’ stuff, costumes, scripts. Like, from the original production in France in nineteen-oh-whatever.”

“And this historical note somehow got into your program?” Claudia asked. “You sure he didn’t just think you were cute?”

Steve said, “I’d banter about how cute I am, but I’m sweating from the pain. Why would a guy who thought I was cute pass me a note that turned out to be an artifact? Besides, when I say I ran into him, I mean I literally ran into him. Stuff went flying everywhere: my program, his box of stuff…”

Myka said, “Great, we know that the note’s probably related to the show’s history somehow… and I’m sure that would be useful information, if we had any way of researching it.”

Helena kissed her again.

“That wasn’t progress,” Myka told her.

“Neither was that tautology concerning oranges, but I heard no complaints then.”

This time, Myka kissed _her_.

****

In another bedroom:

“What did you touch?” Artie demanded.

Pete looked around. “Ah,” he said, then “oops,” followed by “it was kind of a rookie mistake, but in my defense, I was tired.”

Artie looked at him, looked at the bed, looked back at him.

Pete said, “Yeah, here’s the thing: if you don’t use your hands, you really don’t think of it as _touching_.”

Artie just looked at him.

“Okay, I’m playing that back in my head, and it could kind of apply to a lot of things, couldn’t it?”

“This is why I hate going into the field.”

“But I found it! Without me, we wouldn’t have found it!” Pete pulled the sheets from the bed.

“Just… stop. Let’s bag these things and get on the next plane out of here.” Artie scrabbled through his things. “Where are the big static bags?”

“Next to the little ones?” Pete guessed. “Or judging from your expression, I’m gonna go with: somewhere other than here.”

“All right,” Artie said, “we’ll just have to _fold_ the sheets.”

“Okay,” Pete said. He very carefully laid one sheet across the bed, then put the second on top of it. He then pulled the right side over across the left side, bringing the corners together precisely.

Artie shouted, “Why are you _wasting time_?” He yanked at the sheets and began haphazardly doubling the fabric over itself.

“You’re doing it wrong!” Pete shouted back. “My mom taught me how to fold sheets! You have to do it the long way so you know where the center is, for when you make the bed the next time!”

Artie roared, “We aren’t making a bed next time! And even if we were, that is insane!”

“Don’t insult my mom! She has really strong feelings about things like sheet-folding. So do lots of people. Women especially. You know,” Pete mused, “I should head on back to the bar. Women _love_ a man who does his fair share of housework. Particularly a man who does it _right_.”

Artie, still in the process of violently wrestling the sheets into a small bag, said, “Here’s what women, and all people everywhere, really love: a man who stops talking now and doesn’t start again until he reaches South Dakota.”

“We could get there faster if you’d fold the sheets right.”

****

In a bar:

“Please go away,” said the most beautiful woman Jimmy Newhouse had ever seen.

“Only if you come with me,” he told her. _Awesome line_ , he congratulated himself.

Then the world shifted: Jimmy’s legs weakened; he swayed; he almost fell against the poor woman, who clearly just wanted to get away from him. Get away from him… and he’d been pestering her… “I don’t know why I said those stupid things to you,” he told her. “I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. I’ll leave you alone.” Why would anyone that gorgeous ever look at him anyway?

“No, wait,” she said. “Are you okay? You seem… different than you were a second ago.”

“I don’t know,” he said. “But I don’t want to bother you with it.”

She smiled at him. “It’s not a bother. Here, sit down. You look like you need a glass of water.”

“That sounds great,” he said, with a tentative smile of his own.

****

“Steve!” Myka shouted. “Are you still conscious?”

“Barely,” he said.

Hours more had elapsed. Myka and Helena had tried again to reach the phone, which had rung several times; Claudia had tried to reach her charger. Nothing worked.

She and Helena were sitting with their backs against the doorway. “There is something very strange about leaning against nothing,” Helena mused.

“If only I knew more about French bedroom farces,” Myka moaned. “There’s got to be something—something _other_ than what Claudia recommends—that will get us out of this.” She rested her head against Helena’s shoulder.

The door downstairs slammed shut.

Myka’s head shot up.

“Hey!” her voice and three others (one of them quite faint) resounded.

“Hey back!” Pete yelled. “What’s going on? Why’s everybody upstairs?”

“Is it just you?” Myka said. “Where’s Artie?”

“He wanted to catalog what we bagged. You are not gonna believe what this guy had in his bedroom!”

“What is it with bedrooms?” Myka asked Helena, but when Helena made as if to answer, Myka held up a hand. “That really was rhetorical.” She yelled, “Pete, I need you to do something!”

“Why are you shouting at me? Come down here and just talk, will you? I’m beat!”

“ _You’re_ beat? If you had any idea what we—”

“Myka,” Helena said. “Task at hand.”

“Fine. Pete! Look in the living room for a note, but don’t you dare touch it! Bag it!”

They waited, breathless.

“Okay, it’s bagged. What now?”

Myka poked at the doorway. The air was still solid. “Because it couldn’t _possibly_ have been that easy,” she muttered.

Helena called to Pete, “We’ll need you to find out how to undo the effects!”

“What effects?”

“We are stuck,” Myka said, as slowly and calmly as she could, “in bedrooms. And it is very important that we get out, because Steve’s arm is broken, so you need to get Artie to look up anything about a note artifact related to a French farce called _A Flea in Her Ear_ , and you need to do it _now_!”

After a bit, vague Farnsworth-related sounds filtered up to them.

“So this note,” Pete said, and his voice got louder; he was climbing the stairs. “Somebody tried to bag it once before, Artie says, but it got mixed up with some other old stuff and they got the wrong thing.” He giggled. “Guys, you’re not gonna believe what you have to do.”

“Oh my god,” Claudia gasped, “is my theory right?”

“Well, if your theory is that everybody has to slam their bedroom doors at the same time, then yeah.”

“Slam our bedroom doors,” Claudia repeated.

“At the same time,” Myka said. “Because it’s a farce. Door-slamming. God. All this time.”

Helena patted her shoulder. “You couldn’t possibly have known.”

“Okay,” Myka said. “Let’s do this. Everybody ready? Steve?” When she heard a weak “yeah” from down the hall, she nodded at Helena and commanded, “On three: one… two… three!”

Three doors slammed at once.

Helena reopened theirs and said, “Shall we?”

Myka grinned and stepped confidently to the doorway—

and bounced back into the room.

“Guys!” Claudia shouted. “It didn’t work! And I don’t mean to sound like I’m directing a porno, but I think it’s time for _action_!”

“No,” Myka said, “it’s time for something else.” She couldn’t keep from laughing when Helena made as if to pout. “Seriously. Or have you all forgotten that 3 a.m. doorbell?”

Silence.

“Yeah, I figured you hadn’t. So okay,” she said, “who’s going to take this?”

If there had been crickets in the house, she could have heard them chirping.

Even Helena was looking carefully at what was apparently a _quite intriguing_ spot on the bedroom ceiling.

“Fine,” Myka said. “Steve gets a pass, but the other two of you? Chickens.”

Helena just craned her neck a bit more.

“I will remember this,” Myka told her.

Helena shrugged.

Myka raised her voice and said, “Claud, I’ll remember this!”

“Yeah, because of your _quirk_!”

“I’ll remember that too!”

“No, wait, it’s an idiosyncratic thingy! And so are you!”

“Maybe because of that I won’t tell Pete anything at all!”

“I might die,” Steve said. “I mean, seriously die. Or at least pass out. Actually that would feel really good.”

“You can’t pass out!” Claudia shrieked. “You have to slam your door!”

Pete said, “You tried slamming your doors! It didn’t work!”

“One more person has to slam a door with us.” Myka sighed. “Pete, you have to call your mother.”

“Why?”

“I think I would rather not tell you.”

After a moment, Pete said, “I can accept that.”

“Good. Now call her and tell her we need to coordinate some door-slamming.”

Myka was, initially, fairly happy not to be the one making that call. Her happiness doubled as she listened to Pete trying to explain the origin of the problem (“You read some note or something?”), explain the solution (“You have to slam the door, and whoever’s talking in the background, they should stop, because _I don’t want to know_!”), defend himself (“I wasn’t even here!”), and (fail to) defend the rest of them (“You’re right, it’s all their fault!”).

“She’s ready,” he finally told them. “But she’s saying words about killing all of us once she gets out, so maybe you want to rethink the plan?”

“I _told_ you!” Claudia yelled. “Death stare until we die of death!”

“Could we hurry?” Steve begged. “Dying of death can’t hurt any worse than this.”

“Sorry, man,” Pete said. “Okay, on the count of three! Ready, Mom? One… two… THREE!”

~~Envoi~~

Claudia whisked a pale, shaky Steve off to the hospital, leaving Myka, Helena, and Pete to return things to semi-normal. Helena busied herself with a teapot in the kitchen.

“Psst,” Pete said to Myka. He motioned toward the living room. “C’mere.”

Myka rolled her eyes but complied.

“So,” he said, “I was gonna tell you what we bagged in that guy’s bedroom.”

“If I ever hear the word ‘bedroom’ again, so help me, I will tesla the person who says it.”

“What we bagged in that guy’s edroom-bay.”

“Why is it so important that I hear about this?”

“Because I think… okay, I guess I’ve been sort of assuming… I mean, the whole thing. With you.”

“What whole thing with me?”

“With you and H.G. And how you’ve been, like, not making a move.”

“Pete…”

“See, because what we bagged was Casanova’s original bedsheets. From Italy. And what they do is, they make you think you’re irresistible.”

“Pete.”

“And it’s not that I think you should use them, because first that would be wrong, which I know because you never get tired of telling me, and second I don’t think you want H.G. throwing drinks in your face. Though that’d be hilarious. And vice versa.”

“Pete.”

“Anyway, so the thing is, what they really give you is this insane self-confidence. And that’s what I think you need, is more self-confidence. Because she would never turn you down.”

“Pete, stop.”

“I know, I’m getting all up in your business. But I really just want you to be happy, you know? And it’s so obvious.”

“Pete, seriously, stop.”

“No, I won’t, because I think it’s going to take something _drastic_ to get you to finally wake up. So I’m going to keep talking until you—”

“Helena!” Myka called.

Helena, surprisingly obedient, trotted in from the kitchen and parked next to Myka. “Is there a problem?” she asked.

“Sort of,” Myka told her. “Pete, watch closely.” She leaned over and kissed Helena’s neck, then her ear, then her mouth. With enthusiasm.

When she pulled back, Helena and Pete were wearing almost identical expressions of astonishment.

Pete recovered first. “Tomorrow, I’m starting my new career as a motivational speaker. Because, wow, I am _good_.”

Helena blinked and shook her head. Then she caught up. “Well,” she said. “You were telling the truth: you are certainly not always shy.”

Myka said, “I told you we’d do that again and again and again.” She took Helena’s hand and said to Pete, “Don’t quit your day job just yet. Because something drastic _did_ happen. And I did wake up.” She smiled at Helena.

Helena smiled back. She said, “Ironically, in your bedroom.”

Pete pointed at Myka. “Tesla! You said you’d tesla the next person who said bedroom! Tesla her!”

“Don’t worry,” Myka said. “I have a pretty good imagination, so I’ll figure out some _appropriate_ punishment.” She kissed Helena one more time, then headed for the stairs, gesturing for her to follow. “Come on, you. You’re in for it now.”

“No, definitely not shy,” Helena said. She called after Myka, “Bedroom!”

“Don’t _test_ me, Wells!” Myka said without turning around.

There was a slight pause—but only a slight one. Then, as Helena’s footsteps followed her up the stairs, Myka heard her begin chanting, “Bedroom, bedroom, bedroom, bedroom…”

END

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> original part 6 tumblr tags: HG is still a chicken though, and someday I will write that drink-throwing thing, but for now I would advocate concentrating on not giving any haters any kind of satisfaction, so la la la, this is how it could have been, bedrooms for everybody, (except Myka and HG have to share)

**Author's Note:**

> part 1 original tumblr tags: ignoring any and all S5 elephants in the room, I don't know what it is with me and comedy lately, but farces are cool, not quite as cool as fezzes of course, but you get to slam doors and everybody misunderstands everybody and it is hilarious, which is basically how I think life should be conducted


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